Episode 51: Rural Socio-hydrology
“The Reclamation Law stipulated if you owned more than 160 acres of land and you signed a contract voluntarily to receive publicly subsidized federal water, you have to sell all excess land above 160 acres at pre-water prices, because when you bring water to a place that is doing raisin or dryland wheat—you can now produce strawberries, almonds or houses.”
A conversation with Dr. Daniel O'Connell (Central Valley Partnership) about land, water, and community development in the CA Central Valley. Released May 5, 2023.
guests on the show
Daniel O’Connell
Dr. Daniel O’Connell is executive director of the Central Valley Partnership, a regional nonprofit organization and progressive network of labor unions, environmental organizations, and community groups spanning the San Joaquin Valley. Trained as a multidisciplinary ethnographer, he holds an MS in International Agricultural Development from University of California, Davis, and a PhD in Education from Cornell University. In 2021, Dr. O’Connell published In The Struggle: Scholars and the Fight against Industrial Agribusiness in California. As a politically engaged scholar, his work is dedicated to achieving social, racial, environmental, and economic justice in California.